It said Igor Nadyrshin had received two bullet wounds during a combat operation near the settlement of Starobeshevo (in the southeast of the Donetsk region) and was hospitalized. He was operated on and his life is not in danger, the news agency said.

Tass reported earlier on Sunday that more than 100 Ukrainian servicemen had surrendered to the army of Novorossia (self-proclaimed federative union state of Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics). “The Ukrainian military surrendered arms in the area of Starobeshevo,” it quoted the headquarters of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.

Kiev’s military operation designed to regain control over the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which on May 11 proclaimed their independence at local referendums and now call themselves the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s republics, kicked off in mid-April and has involved armored vehicles, heavy artillery and attack aviation. Hundreds of civilians have been killed, many buildings destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people forced to flee Ukraine’s war-torn southeast.